NVIDIA Powers Oscar-Worthy Work

NVIDIA Powers 10 Years of Oscar-Worthy Work

Learn from Academy Award nominees how amazing VFX are created, at next month’s GPU Technology Conference.

For the 10th consecutive year, every movie up for Best Visual Effects at the Academy Awards was created using NVIDIA Quadro GPUs.

The 90th annual Academy Awards — better known as the Oscars — takes place on Sunday, March 4. From blockbuster visual effects to groundbreaking technical achievements, NVIDIA technology and employees have contributed to Academy Award caliber work for 10 years running.

This year’s nominees:

War for the Planet of the Apes: Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon and Joel Whist

War for the Planet of the Apes is the third chapter of the critically acclaimed blockbuster franchise. The VFX team focused on creating highly realistic interactions between the apes and their environments, from their hidden fortress to the Colonel’s prison.

“War for the Planet of the Apes was a leap forward for our animation,” said Daniel Barrett, animation supervisor at Weta Digital. “We are now working in real time with our animation puppets, even with dozens of characters and full-resolution facial rigs, which means our animators are right there in the moment with the characters. NVIDIA GPU technology helped us get there.”

NVIDIAN Honored for Scientific and Technical Achievement

Every year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences honors an international group of technologists who have significantly contributed to the ongoing evolution of motion pictures, and whose efforts continue to empower the creativity of the industry.

This year, on February 10, the Academy honored 34 recipients with Scientific and Technical Achievement awards. Among them was Joe Mancewicz, a senior software engineer at NVIDIA, who has contributed to multiple Oscar-winning films. This is his second Academy Award.

This year, Mancewicz is nominated, along with Matt Derksen of Rhythm & Hues and Hans Rijpkema of Autodesk, for the design, architecture and implementation of a construction kit rigging system for Rhythm & Hues, where Mancewicz and Derksen worked previously.

“I’m honored the Academy has recognized my colleagues and my work at Rhythm & Hues to enable 15 years of improvements to production efficiency and animation quality,” Mancewicz said. “At NVIDIA, I’m excited to be applying my experience to driving advancements in artificial intelligence across industries.”